‘It’s a joke’: Tribal school girls get Re 1 allowance

Govt incentive for promoting girls’ schooling has now not been revised for 25 yrs.

Maharashtra has now not revised the day by day school allowance for tribal girls for the past 25 years, offering a puny Re 1 for every day they attend categories, even as the state lags in the back of the nationwide average for literacy in tribal areas.

Activists operating to promote girls’ schooling are livid on the measurement of the motivation, which tribal students can't even use to buy a pencil, calling it a merciless funny story.

The Re 1incentive was introduced in 1993 to encourage extra girls in far off areas to wait school and to bring down the dropout charge. While the amount has remained consistent, the salaries of government staff have just about tripled all through the same duration. And in August 2016, state lawmakers took simplest minutes to offer themselves a pay hike.

The state legislature higher the salaries of MLAs and MLCs from Rs 75,000 monthly to Rs 1.five lakh. The pension of former legislators went up by Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000. Even the serving legislators’ non-public assistants loved a bump in their wages, from Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000, and had been allowed to nominate a telephone operator. But no concept was spared for tribal girls.

Activists say the least state govt can do is adjust the allowance to the current inflation degree. “The dropout percentage among woman students from tribal communities may be very prime. Most of them leave after Std IV as faculties in their villages don’t have upper categories,” said Lalsu Nagoti, a tribal rights activist in Gadchiroli district. “To find out about further, the women need to go back and forth to a close-by the city or taluka. Majority of the families don’t have the sources to send their kid. And the paltry incentive of Re 1is now not helping.”

Nagoti said if the state govt was occupied with improving the literacy charge among tribal girls, it must hike the allowance immediately. “The financial assistance has to match as of late’s realities,” he said.

Despite quite a lot of state schemes, tribal literacy charges proceed to be beneath nationwide average. The overall literacy charge in Maharashtra was 82.nine in line with cent in 2011, consistent with the closing census. The determine for tribal spaces: 65.73 in line with cent.

Nandurbar district in northern Maharashtra has the very best percentage of tribal inhabitants; 69.three in line with cent of its residents belong to the Scheduled Tribes. But it has probably the most lowest literacy charges — 64.four in line with cent. The female literacy determine within the district, 56.five in line with cent, additionally ranks a number of the lowest within the state. Dhule and Gadchiroli are the other districts with a prime tribal inhabitants — 31.6 in line with cent and 38.7 in line with cent, respectively. They are on the bottom of the feminine literacy chart.

Khoj NGO’s BS Sane, who works for tribals in Amravati district’s Melghat area, called the Re 1 allowance ridiculous and a sham. “In a yr, folks get about Rs 300 for sending their daughters to school. What excellent is it?” he said.

The state’s tribal development secretary, Manisha Verma, said a revision would be considered. “When this scheme was introduced, there was no Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Under the Abhiyan, all kids in zilla parishad faculties get free uniforms, textbooks and stationery, except mid-day foods,” Verma said.

PICTURE: RAJU SHINDE